05/06/2026
🔔🔔 This Sunday, May 10, 2026, at 11am, Rev. Barbara Jefferys will be speaking about: “Creating our Future”
✨Our Upcoming Speakers are....
✨May 17 - To Be Announced
✨May 24 - Rev. Dr. Katherine R. B. Greysen
✨May 31 - Paul Ghosthorse
✨June 7 - Mariela Andersen
+++Renowned Cherokee story teller Nancy Pheasant will be sharing a selection of fascinating Cherokee stories at First United Methodist Church on May 14 at 6:30 pm. A reception will be held afterward including punch and finger desserts.
+++Join "Tea & Talk" for beverages and meaningful conversation as we explore spiritual topics, reflect together, and encourage one another in growth and fellowship. Our first topic (the group will choose later topics) is "Finding Happiness Now." There’s no wrong answer -- just one's own experience. Our collective hope is that Tea & Talk becomes a place where we can learn from one another, reflect deeply, and grow together. The first meeting of Tea & Talk is May 7th (Thursday) from 3:00 - 5:00 PM in the Fellowship Hall. Later meetings will be every Thursday (same times). You may bring your favorite beverage and shareable snacks.
+++We are collecting donations for the upcoming yard sale June 26, 27, & 28. Please drop off gently used items Sunday when we have services or by appointment. Thank you!
+++Please bring nonperishable food items to SLC. There is a box for them in the vestibule. This food will be distributed to families in need within our community. Be aware food items cannot be distributed if they are over one year past the expiration date. Thank you!
+++Our Board of Trustees meet the 2nd Sunday of each month following the Sunday Service. Everyone is welcome to attend, but only Board members may vote.
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+++The Taoists have a famous teaching about an empty boat that keeps ramming into you. While you probably wouldn’t be angry at an empty boat, you might well become quite angry if someone was actually inside that boat intentionally causing it to ram into you.
The point of the story is that we have all suffered at the hands of those who mindlessly hurt us, such as parents who didn’t raise you with love and kindness, other kids who teased and bullied you when you were a child, the driver who aggressively tailgated you or refused let you pass. Or maybe the person who snapped thoughtlessly at you for no apparent reason. All of these are in fact like empty, rudderless boats. Those who bumped into you were the boats that were propelled by their own unexamined, unhealed wounds, therefore they were not focusing on who they were hurting. They just crashed mindlessly into whatever was in front of them.
Just as an empty boat that rams into us isn’t targeting us personally, so too people who act unkindly are driven along by the unconscious force of their own past wounds and pain. Until we realize this, we will remain prisoners of our own grievances, and we will see ourselves as a victim who deserve to be angry and preoccupied with resentment. All of this preoccupation upon the empty boats that have rammed us keeps us from being open to the more powerful and beautiful currents within our life that are always flowing through the present moment to bless us.
